#peter levi

One begins to see in the mythology as well as the geography of all these rivers that they have distinct personalities and different tones.

I do not suppose anyone but Harry Brewster has visited all these rivers, and we shall be condemned to envy him until we have equalled him.

Wood Engraving Wednesday

SIMON BRETT

This week we showcase two wood engravings (with one in two colors) by the incomparable English illustrator and wood engraver Simon Brett. The first two are the same engraving printed in black and mustard yellow from Claire Van Vliet’s 1976 Janus Press printing in Vermont of Thom Gunn’s poetry collection The Missed Beat, printed from the original block on Okawara paper for Anthony Baker’s Gruffyground Press in an edition of 120 copies. 

The last engraving is from British poet Peter Levi’s Music of Dark Tones AMDG [Ad maiorem Dei gloriam] printed in Marlborough, Wiltshire, at Michael Mitchell’s Libanus Press for Brett’s own Paulinus Press in an edition of 200 copies signed by the poet and artist.

Simon Brett was a student of the equally incomparable wood engraver Clifford Webb. Brett taught at Marlborough College Art School from 1971-1989, operated the Paulinus Press from 1981-1988, served as chair of the now over-100-years-old Society of Wood Engravers from 1986-1992, and has written widely on the history and practice of wood-engraving. A 50-year retrospective of Brett’s wood-engravings was held at Bankside Gallery, London, Art Jericho, Oxford, and Holburne Museum, Bath, 2013-14.

You're a brave man they tell me. I'm not. Courage has never been my quality. Only I thought it disproportionate so to degrade myself as others did. No foundations trembled. My voice no more than laughed at pompous falsity; I did no more than write, never denounced, I left out nothing I had thought about, defended who deserved it, put a brand on the untalented, the ersatz writers (doing what had anyhow to be done). And now they press to tell me that I'm brave. How sharply our children will be ashamed taking at last their vengeance for these horrors remembering how in so strange a time common integrity could look like courage.

Out in the deep wood, silence and darkness fall, Down through the wet leaves the October mist; No sound, but only a blackbird scolding, Making the mist and the darkness listen.

 Peter Levi